Space Weather Update: 04/26/2016

SOLAR SECTOR BOUNDARY CROSSING: On April 28th, probably late in the day, Earth will cross a fold in the heliospheric current sheet–a vast wavy structure in interplanetary space separating regions of opposite magnetic polarity. This is called a “solar sector boundary crossing,” and it could trigger geomagnetic activity around Earth’s poles. Aurora alerts: text or voice

PENGUINS SERENADE AURORAS: As northern summer approaches, the midnight skies of the Arctic Circle are no longer completely dark. Aurora season is therefore shifting from north to south. For the next four months or so, the velvety-dark skies of Antarctica are the perfect backdrop for auroras. Penguins on the Brunt Ice Shelf serenaded this display on April 16th:

“I camped out in the field, enduring temperatures around -32°C to -34°C to witnessthis fantastic glow of green and purple,” says photographer Greig Lawson. “This is at the site of an Emperor penguin colony. The calls of the birds in the background provided the soundtrack to the evening’s photography!”

Lawson is a medical doctor working at theBritish Antarctic Survey’s Halley Research Station. Located atop the Brunt Ice Shelf, a 130 meter thick slab of frozen water that floats atop the Weddell Sea, Halley is known for its studies of ozone, cosmic rays, and climate change. Lawson will be busy in the months ahead tending to the station’s wintertime staff of 16. Hopefully, he’ll have time send more pictures as geomagnetic storms paint their colors on Antarctic skies. Aurora alerts: text orvoice

ASTEROID FLYBY: Newly-discovered asteroid 2016 FY3 is flying past Earth today about 1.5 million miles away. There’s no danger of a collision, but the 310 meter-wide space rock is close enough to see through amateur telescopes. Dennis Simmons photographed it this morning from Brisbane, Qld, Australia:

“Wow, this is quite a large rock for such a close pass, so I set up hoping that the weather conditions would let me record this event,” says Simmons. “A hole in the patchy cloud cover allowed me to capture the asteroid glowing like a 14th magnitude star.”

2016 FY3 comes from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and that is where it will return after today’s flyby. Amateur astronomers who wish to track the asteroid as it recedes from Earth can point their GOTO telescopes using this ephemeris.

SPACE WEATHER PROBE TAKES SELFIE: Last December, Joyce and Tad Lhamon of Seattle, Washington, bought their 12-year-old grandson Barrett a far-out Christmas gift–that is, a trip to the edge of space. In exchange for this gift certificate, Barrett could fly any experiment he wanted to the stratosphere onboard an Earth to Sky Calculus helium balloon. He thought about it for months and, after discarding many ideas, Barrett decided to fly a convex mirror. The payload’s cameras could look into the mirror and take a new kind of “space selfie.” Would it work? On April 17th, we flew Barrett’s experiment, and the results were better than anyone dreamed:

A particularly interesting sequence of images shows the balloon exploding above the payload 117,100 feet above Earth. The following video frames are separated by only 1/30th of a second: #1, #2, #3, #4. Note how the payload remains motionless during the explosion. It takes more than a second for the shock wave from the explosion to propagate down the long cord connecting the payload to the balloon.

Every night, a network of NASA all-sky cameras scans the skies above the United States for meteoritic fireballs. Automated software maintained by NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office calculates their orbits, velocity, penetration depth in Earth’s atmosphere and many other characteristics. Daily results are presented here on Spaceweather.com.

In this diagram of the inner solar system, all of the fireball orbits intersect at a single point–Earth. The orbits are color-coded by velocity, from slow (red) to fast (blue). [Larger image] [movies]

Near Earth Asteroids

Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) are space rocks larger than approximately 100m that can come closer to Earth than 0.05 AU. None of the known PHAs is on a collision course with our planet, although astronomers are finding new ones all the time.

These measurements are based on regular space weather balloon flights: learn more.

Approximately once a week, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus fly “space weather balloons” to the stratosphere over California. These balloons are equipped with radiation sensors that detect cosmic rays, a surprisingly “down to Earth” form of space weather. Cosmic rays can seed clouds, trigger lightning, and penetrate commercial airplanes. Our measurements show that someone flying back and forth across the continental USA, just once, can absorb as much ionizing radiation as 2 to 5 dental X-rays. For example, here is the data from a flight on Oct. 22, 2015:

Radiation levels peak at the entrance to the stratosphere in a broad region called the “Pfotzer Maximum.” This peak is named after physicist George Pfotzer who discovered it using balloons and Geiger tubes in the 1930s. Radiation levels there are more than 80x sea level.

Note that the bottom of the Pfotzer Maximim is near 55,000 ft. This means that some high-flying aircraft are not far from the zone of maximum radiation. Indeed, according to the Oct 22th measurements, a plane flying at 45,000 feet is exposed to 2.79 uSv/hr. At that rate, a passenger would absorb about one dental X-ray’s worth of radiation in about 5 hours.

Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, AntarcticaCredit: NOAA/OvationPlanetary K-indexNow: Kp= 1 quiet24-hr max: Kp= 2 quietexplanation | more dataInterplanetary Mag. FieldBtotal: 4.4 nTBz: 1.2 nT south explanation | more dataUpdated: Today at 1818 UTCoronal Holes: 26 Apr 16Solar wind flowing from this small coronal hole could reach Earth on May 1-2. Credit: SDO/AIA.Noctilucent Clouds The southern season for noctilucent clouds began on Dec. 13, 2015. It is expected to end in late February or March 2016.

About Michael Silver

Awoken in late 2012. Dedicated to the Mission of Ascension for Mother Earth. Always of Service to The Universe, to Creation, to LOVE, to Our Mother & Father of All Creation.
"Be Determined, Be Brave, Be Love... and Most Importantly, Laugh..."
Michael Silver
Spiritual Intuitive Counselor, Lead Editor, Web Master
LoveHaswon.org
michaelsilver@lovehaswon.org

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